Das haut den stärksten Zwilling um (1971)

The civil servant Peter Werner is separated from his wife Grit, a fashion photographer. Their twin daughters are separated too: Gaby is growing up with her father in Munich, while Ulli is with her mother in London. One day, Grit has work to do in Munich and wants to bring Ulli along. Peter pretends that all the hotels in town are fully booked, so Ulli and Grit stay with him. But after Peter sees a black cat cross from right to left, nearly runs over three nuns, and breaks a mirror, bad luck begins to pursue him. One thing after another goes wrong, and when Grit has to leave for work in the middle of a planned romantic dinner, Peter gets hopelessly drunk. A notice of dismissal from his boss is the last straw. Together with his equally drunk upstairs tenant, Wondrak, he writes his boss a letter full of insults. Peter wakes up the next morning with a terrible hangover and, still not in his right mind, tells his two daughters to post the letter. Once sober, he tries in vain to get it back. Among other things, he breaks into the post office and interrupts three actual burglars in the middle of their break-in. In the end, the three dim-witted men leave the money behind and flee with several sacks full of mail. A short time later, they show up at Peter’s door and demand that he give “their” money back. Meanwhile, Ulli and Gaby have fun taking advantage of their identical appearances: Ulli, who is excellent at English, stands in for Gaby, who struggles with the language, in class and promptly gets an A. There are also romantic mix-ups: Gaby is courted by Udo and Michael, and in the end Ulli goes out with Michael while Gaby goes out with Udo. Only Peter’s remark exposes the mix-up and also reconciles the two rival boys. Peter, too, has romantic complications: he has a lover in the singer Peggy, but now finds himself attracted to his ex-wife Grit again. Grit, in turn, seems to have found an admirer in her boss, Hugo. In the end, everyone arrives at Peter’s apartment one after another, where the three burglars have already taken up residence. They want to find the money at Peter’s place and threaten to stab him. Each time the doorbell rings, the three hide. Peggy arrives first, then Grit, followed by Peter’s secretary and an administrative clerk, who want to collect the original dismissal notice from Peter—it had been meant for another Mr. Werner at the company. Soon afterwards, the teacher Richard arrives, along with the administrative clerk’s jealous lover, Hugo and Peter’s boss, and Ulli and Gaby. In a chaotic fight with the burglars, not only the three criminals but Peter as well are knocked to the ground. Peter’s twin brother Ferdinand then appears, and Peter’s boss congratulates him: he has long wanted a strong-willed man at the head of his company, and Ferdinand has shown him exactly that with the fateful letter. Ferdinand is appointed company director in the mistaken belief that he is Peter. Once the chaos dies down, Peter comes round from his faint. He greets his twin brother, who has also managed to drive Peggy away, and makes up with Grit. They get back together and become one big family with Ulli and Gaby.